Taking Shape

by Dustin McNeill

  One of the most affecting changes in the director’s cut involves Sheriff Brackett finding his daughter’s dead body. Theatrically, this scene is shorter and mutes Brad Dourif’s pained cries. The director’s cut extends this moment considerably and restores the audio. Dourif’s haunting performance is intercut with home movies of actress Danielle Harris as a child, which represent his memories of Annie. The result is a scene overloaded with emotional weight, one of the most gutting in the entire franchise.

  Much of Annie’s attack and the impact of the reveal were improvised on the set. Actress Danielle Harris informed IconsofFright.com, “In the script, there was no scene between Michael Myers and Annie. I thought, ‘If I’m going to go out, I have to go in a scene with Michael, and he’s got to get me at some point. I can’t not have a scene with Tyler Mane the entire movie. That’s just nuts.” To compensate, Zombie shot an improvised scene in which Michael brutalizes Annie in her bedroom of which only quick snippets were used in the final cut.

  As originally scripted, Laurie was to have discovered Annie’s body in an overflowing bathtub; the keen fan will notice that in the deleted scenes, it is the bathtub’s water that signals Laurie and Mya to venture upstairs and find Annie. This aspect is lost in the final film, aside from a brief moment in which Mya slips on the water while struggling to call the police. As far as the revision, Harris revealed, “That scene, we made up as we went along. All I was supposed to say was, ‘He’s in the house.’ That was the only thing. That’s it. Then you’d see my head hanging out of the bathtub and I thought, ‘We can’t go out like that.’ I knew I’d get shit for it. People were going to say, ‘I can’t believe that’s how you went out.’ So, I thought, ‘Let me get out of the bathtub and let’s do it on the bathroom floor.”

  Arguably the biggest change in Halloween II’s director’s cut involves the ending. This new version splits from the theatrical cut once Loomis enters the shack in which Laurie and Michael are hiding out. Theatrically, Michael carves up Loomis like a jack-o-lantern in what is surely the doctor’s death scene. Brackett catches Michael in his sniper scope and fires a single shot, knocking him backward onto sharp farm equipment. Now impaled, Michael struggles to move. A tearful Laurie approaches him and says, “I love you, brother,” before stabbing him to death with his own knife. She then emerges from the shack wearing the tattered white mask. The scene fades to an all-white sanitarium. A crazed Laurie smiles as she imagines her mother and a white horse approaching. Halloween II’s theatrical ending was filmed during the July reshoots and not representative of Zombie’s original vision for the film. He has since come to denounce it.

  As originally written and captured, the film’s ending was much bleaker. Loomis enters the shack and attempts to rescue Laurie. The hulking slasher grabs him and they go bursting through the shack wall together. Removing his mask, Michael stares Loomis in the eye and angrily shouts his first word in over twenty years: “DIE!!!” He then stabs Loomis only once, who falls to the ground. With this, police open fire on Michael, filling his body with bullets. Laurie stumbles out of the shack a moment later, picks up Michael’s knife, and goes to stab an incapacitated Loomis. Before she can do so, police fire several more rounds, killing her. The film ends with the same sanitarium shot, except that it’s now Laurie’s dying vision and not an actual place. With this version, a cover of “Love Hurts” begins to play.

  Studio executives strongly disliked this original ending for its finality. With both Michael and Laurie dead, there was nowhere for a possible Halloween III to go. It was at their request that Laurie not only survive but be the one to finally end Michael’s terror, which she does. This victory rings hollow, however, since she still succumbs to her family’s madness.

  “I knew what I was trying to say, for sure,” Zombie told Scream Magazine. “One of the endings is great and one of them sucks. The ending as intended is the one included with the director’s cut. She gets shot and has the going-toward-the-white-light moment. That, for me, worked but unfortunately others kept saying that they needed this, they needed that, and this production spun out of control in that respect. […] I fucking hate the theatrical ending. It works, but it doesn’t emotionally do anything for me. I think the original resonates.”

  DELETED SCENES

  Like its predecessor, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II had quite of lot of material left on the cutting room floor. In the interest of keeping this interesting, this section will only detail the more significant deletions from the film. Scenes discussed here are either truncated or missing altogether in both of Halloween II’s official versions.

  While Margot Kidder’s Dr. Collier receives additional screen time in the director’s cut, she had yet another therapy scene with Laurie that was absent from the film. She tells of an old Cherokee legend that says we all have two battling wolves inside us – Hope and Fear – and that the wolf we feed is the one who ultimately wins. Being an insufferable jerk, Laurie is having none of her animal metaphor and responds poorly. “That’s fucking crazy.”

  Halloween II originally had several additional scenes at Uncle Meat’s Java Hole between Uncle Meat and his young employees. They argue about the merits of country singer Tex Ritter and of vinyl as a music format. Laurie shows up late to work and soon after suffers a hallucination while taking out the trash. She envisions Michael hanging her from a tall tree right beside a children’s playground, her screams for help falling on deaf ears.

  As originally filmed, Loomis’ promotional appearance at the hotel ran a little longer than it does in the film. The junket was to open with a videotaped conversation between young Michael and his mother at Smith’s Grove. Suffering from a delusion of denial, Michael doesn’t understand why he can’t return home. Deborah tries to explain: “Bad things have happened and now our family is broken.” Michael insists he can fix it and bring them together again. Deborah patronizes him. The clip ends and Loomis takes the stage for several jokes of rather poor taste. He brushes off any notion that he is responsible for or cashing in on last year’s tragedy. When asked his thoughts on the new WWMD t-shirts for sale online, he comments: “The average true-blue American is sicker than Michael himself,” which elicits boos from the crowd.

  While the scene of Laurie, Annie, and Brackett sharing a pizza dinner appears in the film, it was shortened from its original edit. The full scene finds Brackett voicing his concerns about Laurie attending the upcoming Phantom Jam, especially since a boy was killed the previous year after drunkenly wandering onto nearby train tracks. Laurie assures him that she will be fine, noting that Michael Myers is officially dead and that she can’t live her life “hiding from a ghost.” Later that night, an angry Brackett watches Loomis give a television interview outside the Myers house in which he mocks the Sheriff’s Department for having lost Michael’s corpse two years earlier. This scene is intercut with footage of old Michael, young Michael, and ghostly Deborah visiting the latter’s grave. She asks why they’re here to which young Michael replies: “Because I miss you.”

  Also deleted were several scenes at the Sheriff’s Department including one in which someone calls to complain about a homeless man (Michael) rummaging through her trash for food. By the time Brackett receives the call, Michael has vanished and the caller hangs up. A deputy mentions having received multiple Michael-sightings from throughout the county – all within the span of ten minutes. Brackett laments, “It’s going to be a long couple of days.”

  Zombie originally shot more material at the Rabbit in Red lounge than appears in the final film. These extra bits included alternate death scenes for owner Lou Martini and stripper Misty Dawn. Unlike in the film, Michael appears unmasked for both alternate kills. Lou is very quickly dispatched without having his arm broken. A stark-naked Misty is chased out into the parking lot where Michael snaps her neck. He drags her body inside and switches the neon-light from OPEN to CLOSED as in the film.

  An additional deleted scene found beer deliveryman Ned Atkins discovering the grues
ome corpses of Lou, Misty, and Howard Boggs the following morning. Horrified by this, he attempts to call 911 but has his throat slit by Michael before he can say anything. In a bizarre turn, we find that Laurie was the 911 operator on the other end of the line. While still on the phone, Michael sneaks up from behind and slashes her throat in what is soon revealed to be a nightmare. (Interestingly, Michael’s nightmare cameo doesn’t match his current homeless look, but rather his appearance at the end of Halloween ‘07, which was the last time Laurie saw him.) The unfortunate beer deliveryman was played by Ezra Buzzington, who also played the original caretaker in Halloween ‘07 before that scene was reshot with Sid Haig. This means Buzzington has the odd distinction of being killed in both Rob Zombie Halloween movies – and having both deaths ultimately cut from the final films! Poor chap.

  Dr. Loomis’ book tour was another part of Halloween II that originally ran longer than in the final film. His awkward interaction with Chett “The Bringer of Death” included several more lines with Chett claiming that Michael Myers is actually our savior. Later on in the limousine, we see Loomis belittling his already-abused publicist and trying to blow off a promotional obligation so that he can hook up with the news reporter from earlier. Zombie also filmed an extended take of Loomis storming out of the talk show studio furious at how badly his appearance alongside Weird Al went. His publicist chases after and insists the talk show went well and will be great publicity for the book. These deleted scenes all communicated something we already knew – that the Loomis of Halloween II is a repugnant douchebag.

  In a final deleted scene, Sheriff Brackett asks Darren, one of Annie’s childhood friends, to go keep her company on Halloween night. The two have clearly grown apart in their adolescence with Darren taking a huge interest in comic book culture. Annie makes no effort to hide her obvious annoyance at his presence and bluntly declines his invite to accompany him to a fan convention. “I just don’t give a shit.” (You can’t help but think how this scene, especially when coupled with the Chett “Bring of Death” bit, is Rob Zombie’s way of giving the middle finger to geek fandom in general.) It should be noted, however, that in Zombie’s earlier drafts, Darren was originally envisioned as Annie’s love interest. Actress Danielle Harris had requested the revision to childhood friend, believing that Annie’s past trauma and agoraphobic nature would not allow her to have a new boyfriend.

  One of the stranger parts of Halloween II that failed to make the screen involved Michael’s hallucinations. In both versions of the film, he imagines his younger self and dead mother co-existing alongside him. As originally scripted, both ghostly figures were present at the Brackett house just prior to Annie’s attack, with Deborah asking her son, “Why didn’t you kill her last time?” Young Michael responds, “Because she’s just so short.” (It’s possible this was a playful dig at Danielle Harris’ height). Early trailers also featured a clip in which Deborah and both versions of Michael stand above Annie’s body, with Deborah later commanding, ‘Kill her, baby.’

  Likewise, as written and even cast, Michael was to hallucinate not one but multiple versions of his younger self. This doppelgänger element was to figure prominently into the ending with Laurie being restrained by multiple Michael’s within the shack. In the final film, there is only one young Michael seen throughout as played by Chase Wright Vanek. Journalist Philip Nutman referenced this in his Fangoria set report: “On another part of the set, a group of young boys, all dressed in young Michael’s clown costume and wearing blonde wigs to ensure they resemble Chase, sit around with their parents looking bored - until an assistant director shows up to teach them how to stab with fake rubber blades. [...] Once again, no one will offer an explanation regarding these kids’ presences or how they will feature in tonight’s shooting.”

  DISCARDED CONCEPTS

  As previously mentioned, there were several minor roles cut from the film due to the studio slashing two weeks from the production schedule. The first among these was ambulance driver Ted Adams and his girlfriend Penny, both of whom were included in early casting notices. From these breakdowns, we can gather that Ted wasn’t quite as repulsive as the coroners that appear in the film’s opening. As the casting sheet reads: “Sadly, on a rare night off, Ted and his girlfriend are met by Michael and Ted does not survive his brutal stabbing and skin removal.”

  The next omitted scene would have unfolded inside the Myers house, which only appeared briefly in the film when Loomis gives an interview on the front lawn. As originally written, Halloween II was to venture inside the haunted house for a little bloodshed. Having received multiple reports of Michael sightings, Sheriff Brackett sends two deputies – Sarah Lyons and Fred King – to search his old family home. They investigate the old house believing Michael to have died two years prior. Much to their surprise, he is waiting inside and kills them both – slashing Sarah’s throat before stabbing them. While these roles had been cast and the kill effects prepped for, this scene was never actually filmed. Performers Meagan Fay and Mark Christopher Lawrence still appear in the final film as Deputies Lyons and King, albeit in much smaller roles. (Fun fact: Lawrence also played an ill-fated Smith’s Grove security guard in a deleted scene from Halloween ‘07.) Fay’s throat-slashing appliance was later repurposed for the death of Octavia Spencer’s character during Laurie’s hospital nightmare.

  While not entirely cut from the film, the deaths of Harley and Wolfie were changed considerably during production. In the final film, Wolfie is stabbed in the back while taking a leak beside a tree – and Harley is killed when Michael bursts through the back-window of Wolfie’s van and strangles her. Both of these deaths are far cleaner than the gruesome deaths Rob Zombie had originally envisioned for the party pals. In the original script, Michael was to have decapitated Wolfie; a full mold of the actor’s head was even designed by SFX artist Wayne Toth but went unused as the shooting schedule necessitated a swifter pace. As for Harley? The casting breakdown for the character originally noted, “Actress must be comfortable with head and face casting for special effects, because her death is a vivid one! All about knives to the face!”

  INTERVIEW: Brandon Trost

  (Brandon Trost: Cinematographer - RZH2)

  Would you consider yourself a fan of the genre?

  I’d consider myself both a fan and not a fan. I grew up with horror films, but the ones that resonated with me the most weren’t strictly horror. Stuff like The Shining, The Exorcist, Poltergeist. To me, those films are more complete emotional narrative experiences beyond just being scary. I also enjoy the more schlocky stuff like Critters and Child’s Play, which are super fun. Not to knock the whole genre, but I feel like there are so many horror films coming out that just aren’t any good. There’s a huge market for bad genre stuff. Those movies aren’t my cup of tea.

  Of course, I’d seen and enjoyed Halloween ever since I was a kid. I was a fan of it, but I’m more so just a fan of John Carpenter in general. The Thing is one of my all-time favorite movies. That’s part of what made working on Rob’s Halloween II so special, just the chance to be part of that world. At the same time, I knew that it was going to be a Rob Zombie film, not a John Carpenter film. They’re almost like opposite ends of the horror spectrum.

  I joked with Phil Parmet that Michael Myers wasn’t the first slasher he’d worked with as he shot second unit for Freddy’s Dead in 1991. Looking over your IMDb, I see you also had some previous slasher experience as an effects assistant on Scream 2. Tell me about that.

  The truth about a lot of those older credits is that they aren’t all that official. I credited myself on those productions without having done all that much work on them. My dad was actually the special effects coordinator on most of those. In a way, I grew up in the business through seeing him do special effects. So I was always hanging out on movie sets helping him do his job. And because he’s an effects guy, he was always getting called to do horror films because they needed him to do blood and guts or whatever. Horror is a big st
omping ground for effects guys.

  With Scream 2, I was like fifteen-years-old helping my dad over the course of one summer. It wasn’t anything official, but I was just excited to be on set. It was also amazing getting to be in the presence of Wes Craven. He was such a calm, gentle presence. I wasn’t expecting that at all from someone who made so many great horror movies. I also consider myself a big fan of his work too. I love Nightmare on Elm Street and especially Serpent and the Rainbow.

  So how did you get hired onto Halloween II?

  I had done several projects for Neo Art & Logic, mostly direct-to-video movies for Dimension Films. Someone recommended me to a line producer on Halloween II and I was invited to come meet with Rob Zombie. I hadn’t actually seen his first Halloween, so I checked that out and read the script for his second one. I went in for the meeting and we hit it off right away.

  Rob had a very specific idea of what he wanted. He told me that he wasn’t entirely thrilled with how his first Halloween turned out, despite it being a pretty decent hit. It didn’t quite reach the level of grittiness he was aiming for, so he intended to make Halloween II a little more rough around the edges. He said, ‘We shot the first Halloween on 35mm. Why don’t we shoot this one on 16mm so that we get a little more grain?’ I thought that was a good plan because it was definitely going to give the film a more vintage look, which Rob loves. He’s pretty much obsessed with anything that came out in the 70’s. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is practically the foundation of his visual style. His approach on Halloween II was going to involve shooting everything handheld and with multiple cameras. I was on the same page as him with all of that.

  What was your impression of the direction Rob took with Halloween II?

  I liked it a lot. It’s fascinating how Halloween II switches gears as soon as it starts. At first, it almost seems like it’s going to follow along with the old Halloween II with Laurie waking up in the hospital. Then it shifts into this post-traumatic stress film. It was a very different kind of slasher movie, a kind that not many people have seen before or since. I know diehard Halloween fans weren’t super into it, but I also feel like it’s aging well. I may be biased in saying that. We were trying to do something different. Rob was definitely making his own movie with this one. He wasn’t trying to copy what John Carpenter did. I was happy to lean into that direction with him. I purposefully didn’t even watch the original Halloween before we went off and did Rob’s Halloween II. I didn’t want to be influenced by it as a way of supporting Rob’s artistic vision.